Croatia vetoes opening of Chapter, Vucic: We will talk differently from now on

BELGRADE – Croatia has vetoed the opening of Chapter 26 in Serbia’s EU accession talks, and Serbian PM Aleksandar Vucic announced late Monday he would not attend the Serbia-EU intergovernmental conference in Brussels unless the country lifted the veto, Prva TV reported.

Vucic, who arrived in Brussels late Monday, will leave as early as this evening unless an agreement on lifting the veto is reached with EU foreign policy and security chief Federica Mogherini, the television reported.

The intergovernmental conference on the opening of new chapters in the accession talks is scheduled for Tuesday.

“Serbia has been patient all along and tried not to react, but it will talk differently from now on,” Vucic told Prva TV.

The dispute is over what Belgrade claims are attempts by Croatia to block Serbia’s progress toward EU membership.

Zagreb objects to opening the chapter on culture and education because of a dispute about the translation of school textbooks.

Croatia’s Minister for Foreign and European Affairs Davor Ivo Stier said “full protection of national minorities” is one of the things “Serbia must implement along its EU path.”

Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic on December 12 said that “if Croatia is the one to decide about whether Serbia will enter the EU, then my interest just dropped somehow.”

2 COMMENTS

That’s a bit cynical when Croatia, who drove out 300,000+ Serbs, leveled many a house, stole their property, and killed quite a few civilians in the process, who is to this day very effectively preventing those Serbian civilians from returning, or even just reclaiming their property, whose president just a few days ago publicly apologized for accidentally handing out chocolates made in Serbia to children in Dubrovnik – with Serbs still being a minority in Croatia – to block opening of new chapters for Serbia on grounds of “not protecting its minorities”, who were never mistreated, and have more rights than in any other European country. Just a bit. But very much in line with the best traditions of Croatian politics, since the beginning of the 20th century, till now.

Serbia would be wise to stop pushing to get in the EU. The Serbian government has already enacted harmful measures against Serbia for the EU, and all the EU wants is more and more conditions which are detrimental to Serbs.
Why do Serbs want to get into the anti-Serb EU – especially an Eu which promotes theft of Serbian territory and property and supports and encourages those who ethnically cleanse Serbs such as the Croats?
And now you have British voters wanting out of the EU dictatorship. Serbs are fools to want to be part of the EU trap.